#this is why despite being unemployed i still take a while to write LMFAO i just. really like knowing where im going. sdjhfg

[fakeosirian]

working out more character dynamics for foyf via post again since apparently it makes my brain run better don't mind me (read if you like long-winded armchair psychoanalysis? not kidding it's nearly 4k words under there)

re: fabian's sinner capture, there's a sort of "party line" developing that divides fabian, nina, eddie, and patricia in their opinion of how "to blame" he is

fabian personally holds himself entirely to blame, to the point of not acknowledging that uh, other people did have an impact on that situation; claiming full responsibility and not letting that go, while "noble" and better than shirking it, isn't exactly beating the prideful allegations or helping him not repeat the same mistake again

nina, out of the loop until very recently, is having a completely natural strong emotional reaction primarily based in concern, but her means of expressing concern sounds a Lot like criticism/scolding (and people have come to expect this from her, so they may be more sensitive to it/touchy about it than otherwise) -- ultimately she believes in fabian's good intentions, but she also is in the habit of looking to him for answers/trusting his assessments, so if he's getting angry at her for not agreeing with him that he's a bad person, she's going to scold him extra hard (both "you're wrong" and also "well stop acting bad then!") so he can start feeling reliable again. for his own sake, but tbh, for her sake, too.

eddie complicates matters (not by choice -- he does Not want to play messenger despite doing it anyway) because he and KT are in the unique position of being the only two with complete knowledge of the events of the years previous (or at least as complete as is feasible), and he has a far more forgiving and easygoing disposition relatively speaking. he knows fabian messed up, but he's not alone in that, and eddie simply can't be bothered to fixate on him as some sort of problem in perpetuity now that the crisis was averted. he worries about fabian's emotional state (and patricia's! since she's having similar issues), and he knows you can't just get over it overnight, but he insists that it "wasn't that big of a deal since it's all fine and it wasn't really you" in a way that can come off dismissive. basically, he's probably got a healthier picture of what happened, but that's a luxury he can afford to have. those blaming themselves don't respond well to it, and it has mixed results with those who are still trying to grasp what even happened (since it's a "skipping to the end of all of the emotional work and telling you the answer" sort of response on his part -- there's not much else you can expect from him here, but that's still what it is)

patricia is very interesting because she both understands fabian's perspective better than anyone else (besides alfie, but i've chosen to characterize his self-reflection re: his sinner situation as far more successful thus far because of his circumstances). because of that, she's prone to accidentally turning it into a "competition" with him for who fucked up worse. (a competition he will certainly entertain and is equally likely to start with her, too.) that uh, doesn't exactly help either of them much in the short term, but i think having a mirror held up to your face via another person will, over time, increase the chance that at least one of them will have an epiphany about their actual level of responsibility for what happened (ie. yes, that was you, but fixating on it till it defines you is admitting defeat. you can't morally bludgeon yourself into being a better person). that being said, the high of being able to shed people's expectations of you and embrace being kind of a mess is good in moderation -- if they shrunk back from others to feed this dynamic alone, the "connection" would turn regressively malignant fast.

that being said! ultimately, patricia is inclined to fall on the party line of "it really wasn't as bad as fabian thinks it was" with eddie, while fabian and, to a lesser extent, nina are the ones more concerned.

i focused on fabian's situation and not patricia or alfie (or victor or sweet for that matter lol) because i've been writing scenes relating to it for a while now, but i don't think patricia's would be too much different since it is inextricably linked. people just get shuffled up a bit; patricia is obviously fully convinced of her own guilt, and while he still has that optimistic and forgiving pov, i think eddie would have to see her situation differently than fabian's. yeah, he knew what a sinner was when he made his Big Mistake and she didn't, but the reason for patricia's sinner capture was directly related to eddie personally (and from his pov, more of a "long-running issue" for her). eddie doesn't have a grip on fabian's prideful streak from the years before, so lacking that info, is far more likely to dismiss his behavior in s3 as "situational" (explosive reaction to nina's departure, generally paranoid and horrible vibes bringing out the worst in people, taunted in a weak moment) vs. a consistent character flaw -- he's going to see patricia in shades of grey because of the pressure on their relationship that predated s3 (and thus informed the Problems that precipitated her capture). as a result, i think he's more likely to rank someone knowing about sinners or not as less important than their actual behavior and thought process, which would naturally lead him to be easier on fabian and harder on patricia.

that being said, he's definitely not as hard on her as she is; it wouldn't be quite the fabian and nina dynamic re: fabian's capture, as he doesn't have a complex re: loss of control the same way she does, but it'd certainly bother patricia a lot when he continues to draw lines between their present relationship issues and the sinner incident (even if it's out of concern and wanting her to heal from that). it all comes down to the same issue they've had all along: he wants her to just trust him, not like it's easy, but at least like it's something she wants to do; she wants to, but trusting itself is not the hard part: it's the fear of breaking it later that prevents her from taking the leap.

fabian would believe patricia relatively innocent on the basis that she just couldn't have known. yes, he'd empathize with her feelings in spite of that, but because his own issues are so rooted in "i should have known better," he's going to project that priority, even when it's not super appropriate (which, while patricia should take it to heart that she really couldn't have known better in a lot of ways, it does nothing to address the topic she's struggling with, and thus comes off dismissive). nina, similarly, would be shocked/upset that it happened at all, and while she historically has put a lot of emphasis on results vs intentions, i think being away from anubis house would give her a lot of perspective on that, tbh. s2's high stakes + her natural inclination to not handle loss of control well = explosive reactions to people making mistakes; distance makes the heart grow fonder, though, and it's kinda fucked up, but fabian making a mistake that seems far more like an active choice (from her deeply flawed understanding of the situation) would throw patricia into sharp (and sympathetic) relief.

in my eyes, nina is the type to always find something to be worried about (especially after all she's been through training her to look for danger all the time), but she's very practical in that she's going to focus the most on the biggest problem. (other problems will absolutely influence how she handles being upset about that biggest problem, but her conscious focus is in one place.) if fabian's looking like his moral compass has been compromised, patricia suffering a lapse in judgment over a seemingly-unrelated problem (her relationship with eddie) and having that exploited in a way she couldn't possibly have predicted is, relatively speaking, not that big of a deal. it's just not something nina's concerned about her repeating to the same catastrophic effects, and tbh, it's totally in-line with nina's picture of patricia as long as she's known her. fabian, though, has broken her expectations of him, and thus she has a hard time even "knowing who he is" (which he'd echo and insist on even more than nina would; any lingering trust she has in his perspective would only reinforce her lack of trust in him in a really screwy paradoxical sort of way).

i love that nina and eddie, despite confiding in one another about their feelings on this situation more freely than with other people (save KT -- she's got the most unique position here imo), end up mirroring fabian and patricia in that they have roughly the same "experience" of the situation, but the details force them in opposite directions that feed on one another. eddie has a vested interest in keeping nina from getting too upset about something that's "already over," but nina can't help but look for more information that will hurt her to sate her fear of "missing something important."

ironically, while they're not Guaranteed Healthy, fabian and patricia have a dynamic (read: gallows humor, self-critical commiseration, and ultimately open argument) that lends itself better to healing and mutual understanding than nina and eddie at this point; if you asked him if he thought keeping information from someone would help them, he'd say no, but he's still...sorta ascribing to that belief anyway because he sees nina learning too much too fast from "unreliable sources" and getting upset as a "failure" -- why? well, being "left in charge" by her, being "in charge" of the subsequent disaster, and seeing her disappointment (not necessarily with him, but he'd take it that way) in real time would make anyone feel like a screwup. nina getting stressed in particular is a failure in and of itself to him as a "protector" (same way that fabian sees it, the only difference being fabian's been eating away at that feeling for years and it's finally coming to a head vs. eddie who's coasting through it relatively fresh), so his focus is more on reassuring her via statements of "fact" than working through the feelings with her, even the ugly ones. nina should probably take his word for things a bit more and learn to live in the discomfort of not knowing everything (and most of her ugly feelings should be discussed directly with fabian), but as someone who understands her mindset, "just be ok with being uncomfortable" is easier said than done. especially without actively being in therapy. lol.

fabian and eddie, despite being of polar opposite mindsets re: this whole mess, are able to get along (and even improve their relationship?) because eddie's pattern of being hands off and chill and then directly reality-checking fabian when he starts the conversation about something demonstrates the efficacy of trust through action over a long period of time vs. huge declarations that are easier to reject wholesale as theatrics/failure of reasoning. fabian can only insist eddie not trust him for so long before it starts feeling a little ridiculous. (eddie's practiced trust building over and over with patricia, and while fabian does have pretty potent trust issues at this point, they're not NEARLY as deep-seated as patricia's, so he doesn't have the practice she does at dismissing eddie's attempts. he might not buy in all the way, but eventually he'd feel like more of a dick for shutting eddie down over and over than he would for easing up a bit the compulsive self-punishment he thinks he deserves. it's a war of attrition, at the end of the day, and fabian will lose. the real conflict then becomes keeping it up enough to get him to the inevitable, since i think he'd be able to see this happening and would probably get a little stubborn about it to avoid admitting he's wrong for as long as he can stand, lmfao.)

i want to develop the dynamic between nina and patricia more since i think there's a lot of potential for interesting movements there, especially in contrast to fabian and eddie (who, despite being awkward around each other, are very functional, an irony that shocks everyone involved i'm sure). i don't think they'd be dysfunctional -- if anything, i think nina might actually try extra hard to be kind and forgiving to patricia (and i've started setting that up in ch9). why? well, historically they've had a hard time trusting one another because of misunderstandings beyond their control, and while that's something that faded into the background over time, the perspective nina got from being away would make her value that sort of hard-fought trust more than trust that felt "easy" or "natural" before. patricia isn't automatically receptive to someone making that argument -- see: her entire back-and-forth history with eddie -- but nina in particular might be able to sell her on it because their original beef was so intense and so soundly overcome. and nina is also uh...a bit of a grudge holder, as well, so if she's telling you you're fine, well. i think patricia would recognize she's not bullshitting her, and she doesn't have the same sort of bias fabian (to center his own crimes as worse) or eddie (to convince patricia she's "not actually that bad") have. she has bias, OBVIOUSLY, but if anything, patricia was expecting nina to eviscerate her. that isn't to say it'd be easy -- and tbh i think they'd get frustrated with one another after the initial olive branch due to the poor read on one another's motives/feelings they're liable to have since they've both changed and not since the beginning of s1 -- but between patricia offering an alternative (and probably more useful, to nina specifically) perspective on fabian's sinner capture and nina offering an alternative perspective on patricia's struggles with trusting eddie, there's a lot of potential for a "lightning strike" moment for both of them there.

nina doesn't really? ever? comment on peddie in canon? but i feel like at this point, she'd be able to "reality check" patricia (in the same way eddie can "reality check" fabian) and actually get through to her. not too nice/soft (easy to dismiss as "not getting it"), potentially too harsh in an accidental backhanded sort of way, but patricia responds more readily to feeling attacked than feeling coddled (more familiar), and under the right conditions, i think a "mild" attack from nina "chronic inappropriate reactions" martin would encourage patricia to actually stand up for herself in a productive way. patricia acts how she wants in response to her feelings, even hurting eddie on purpose in some situations, but she doesn't "stand up for herself" in the sense that she doesn't refute people's criticisms and negative perceptions of her. "act untrustworthy to make sure no one trusts you so you can't mess up, since no one trusted you in the first place," self-fulfilling prophecy shit.

nina, someone who had to work to trust patricia and vice versa, expressing disagreement with patricia's perception of a situation (especially after expressing sympathy re: other situations) would actually shock her into defending her own position out of spite (IRONY ALERT) and manifest as true self-defense vs. rejecting what she sees as "pity." that self-defense would be the first step to actually learning how to trust, too, because like fabian, her poor relationships with people are founded in her inability to trust herself. that disconnect makes it hard to give other people the benefit of the doubt as a baseline, so reconnecting with her own subjectivity in an earnest way would make it infinitely easier to understand other people (since she already wants to, she just can't square it with her fears in her head). basically, she trusts nina to not go soft on her, and she also doesn't think nina has a good grasp on what happened. of course, neither of them have a great grasp on it, but they'll have a better chance of finding an acceptable truth between one another when they're not letting their other baggage hold them up.

to sum up:

fabian and nina agree on patricia's circumstances in a way that will ultimately help patricia gain perspective to heal, and it sets them apart from eddie to a lesser extent. they agree on fabian's circumstances in a way that pushes them apart since they're mutually inventing proof that they're "right." this could go on for a WHILE without intervention, but between a) other people getting sick of witnessing this and b) the two of them getting exhausted with being upset with each other, something's going to give eventually. the real rub is how well they actually reconcile (ie. actually laying everything out on the table, even if it's upsetting at first, vs. doing what they have before which is make easier but incorrect assumptions until something snaps and the cycle begins again).

patricia and eddie agree on fabian's circumstances in a way that does very little to impact him but does A LOT to push them apart (since eddie can't understand why patricia won't apply the same logic to herself), compounded by them agreeing on patricia's circumstances in terms of her being the "worse problem" (proximity bias). because this is a long-standing issue between them that has basically nothing to do with nina or fabian, outside interference can go either way re: helping or hurting. (as the fic progresses, this is critical point of failure -- easily visible example: fabian doesn't want to break them up, but he doesn't want to push them together, either, re: his own feelings.)

eddie and nina have the weakest relationship with one another out of the whole group of four, and by that i mean they know each other the least well. they have a very literal special bond, but they don't know much about it, they haven't had much interaction in person in the same place, and their approaches to interpersonal issues could not be more different. as a result, their disagreements over both fabian and patricia put some strain on their ability to understand one another (especially since there's the added complication of eddie's direct experience vs. nina's lack of re: s3, and vice versa for the events of s1-s2). however, their emotional stakes in an argument with one another are FAR lower because they're less close, so they gain a lot of insight into the "other side" by hashing it out. the biggest complication is eddie's tendency to self-sacrifice for nina. he's more likely to hold back when he shouldn't, and if she notices, she won't like it. they'd end up arguing more about metacommunication (how you said something/if you aren't saying something/etc) than the actual problem at hand, tbh, which isn't helpful in and of itself, but getting tired of arguing about it could be (both for their relationship and for their relationships with the other two). once they're capable of being very frank with one another, i think they'd have one of the more stable mutual understandings of all of these pairups (which will get very fun once the poly hell REALLY gets going).

patricia and fabian, on the other hand, have a VERY long and varied history with one another, and thus would be inclined to respect one another's flawed self-perception enough to hear one another out, but they will argue about it and ultimately only be able to agree on their self-punishment being appropriate/deserved. in a vacuum, this is only going to make them worse, but they're not in a vacuum. if one of them makes progress, the other one is not far behind (with growing pains, of course) because of the nature of their feedback loop. however, long term that creates the problem of associating the now strengthened relationship they have with their darker impulses, so i anticipate guilt-for-being-close-with-you featuring more frequently as time passes.

eddie and fabian have a historical dynamic that is very uncertain/subject to change from moment to moment, but the fact that they're still roommates without killing each other, they still talk even when it's uncomfortable, and they still enjoy each other's company despite...a LOT of reasons not to in the past...is proof-through-action that missteps between them are not fatal. they don't have extended conversations about the nitty gritty of their issues (usually leaving it at "dude that sucks" or "that's not true man"), but that contrast works in their favor as a "balancing" agent. improvement and progress are rarely planned -- you do just keep going in the middle of crisis and beyond. of course, their feelings about one another intersecting with their feelings about other people makes things awkward, and they do have a fundamental disagreement about the moral questions of the year previous, but the fact that those things don't make life unlivable is extremely reassuring. learning to live with the discomfort type shit. the trust that grows there is extremely natural and "sneaks up on them" as a result.

similarly, nina and patricia have a similar "learn to live with the discomfort" theme, but the method is completely different. they do talk about stuff in the nitty gritty, but because their relationship is already based in defying one another's expectations, they're able to cut through a LOT of bullshit much faster. there's a lot of "i have no reason to lie" being thrown around here, so even though they might view each other as harboring flawed reasoning and resent the other for it, they never disbelieve that it's held in earnest -- that makes it much easier to eventually come to discard beliefs that don't stand up to scrutiny because there's far less ego involved in who is "right" and who isn't when you already got through that phase with a person. (patricia's transgressions are also far less personal to nina, so she's simply not going to be as pressed about it in the first place; patricia would be inclined to come to fabian's defense, but because a lot of nina's issue is believing the bullshit he tells himself that patricia has a lot of experience arguing with, she's in a prime position to point out to nina where she's right and where she's not re: fabian.)

i still haven't worked out who's going to end up flirting with who and when (since oh yeah by the way i updated the relationship tags <3) and that will HEAVILY impact how ^ all of that plays out (part of the reason why i wrote a lot of it in a theoretical tone despite being. in full control of the events.) but i think i'm going to leave that to a different post. lmfao